Tag Archives: 50by50

#50by50 #03 – Go to a concert at the National Arts Centre

The PolyBlog
June 25 2017

One of the things I was thinking about for my 50by50 year was to see some live events. Maybe some sports, like hockey, football, soccer or baseball. Maybe some plays like Ottawa Little Theatre. Or maybe some live music like Bluesfest, Jazz Festival, a concert or the NAC. I thought about separating the sports from the arts, but in terms of going out, the organizational side i.e. the “prep” work to go is the same.

And I realized somewhere in there that it isn’t about “going to do x with someone”, it’s about going to do it whether anyone comes or not (I don’t control if they join or not). I like going for wings, and doing so with friends, but the commitment would have to be about MY effort i.e. arranging and going for wings, not whether the friends decide to join me that week. Equally, while I might be excited to see a specific show or game, the focus is on GOING, the “doing”, not the specific event. I have to schedule it, I have to figure out logistics, buy tickets, figure out if anyone is coming with me, find parking, and go. All of which is about the same whether it is for an arts performance or a sporting event.

So I committed to a second item on my 50by50 list:

  See five different types of live performances

I’ve thought about waiting until I reach the five different types before I write about it, but where’s the fun in that? There are a couple of goals like that, but this one can be part of the shared area.

This past week, Andrea and I went to see the NAC Pops series (we had a mini-subscription), and this week it was listed as the Four Tenors. I swear that is what it said when I ordered tickets. But then they became the Canadian Tenors, and then they had their fourth member who intentionally altered the national anthem during a MLB appearance and blew up social media, and they became the three tenors in search of a name that wasn’t already taken. Now they are simply The Tenors.

I knew none of this of course. I don’t even think I really registered who the Tenors were under whatever name until Andrea explained it to me. Often when the Pops series is on, they come up with some catchy title like Broadway Divas, but it isn’t an official group name. So when I read there were tenors, I thought they were just lowercase tenors. Not an actual act. I know nothing about bands or music groups. Heck, I’m doing well to recognize U2 or The Tragically Hip — I like songs, not bands, and I almost never know who the artists are.

So I went into the night expecting a group of four lowercase tenors. And then there were only three, and the event title was simply The Tenors. Oh, that group. Okay. Didn’t really help clarify anything other than the name. 🙂

I also wasn’t that impressed when I went to the program and it says “The program will be announced from the stage.” In other words, people didn’t get their shit together in time to publish the actual schedule in the program. Nice. I’m a BLUE RATIONAL INTROVERT — I want an agenda to follow, people! hehehe Don’t get me wrong, I’m okay with “spontaneous music” by a band. But for the NAC series, they have a program already set because the orchestra has to have and practice the music; they KNOW what the program is, they’re just not going sharesies! Heck, even the group description was just pulled from Wikipedia.

Which also makes it hard afterwards to review and say they did “this” song well, or “that” song really well. Because ten minutes after I left the hall, I’d forgotten what half the songs were, and even more forgotten after a day. Their set included:

  • The Canadian Tenors — Hallelujah, Home I’ll Be;
  • The Perfect Gift — Instrument of Peace, Hallelujah;
  • Lead With Your Heart — snippets from Manana, Forever Young, Anchor Me;
  • Under One Sky — I Remember You;

There were a smattering of other songs from Reba McNeil, Rankins, etc., plus a medley of Elvis and others. I am okay with Hallelujah, but as Andrea pointed out, it’s kind of saturated with tons of artists doing the covers, and she didn’t think it was the best cover. I liked Home I’ll Be and Instrument of Peace, plus I Remember You. O Sole Mio was impressive to see, but honestly, 30 seconds is enough for me. While I’m impressed that the sound doesn’t seem to match the body generating it, I could care less about that singing. It’s like opera — why do I want to see someone singing, even impressively, in a language I don’t understand, for any length of time? If there’s a backbeat to tap along to, something Spanish maybe, sure. But a friend of mine went to see 18 hours of opera one weekend in New York in languages she didn’t speak. If I had a choice of that or letting a rat chew on a body part for a minute, it would be a close call.

Now, don’t get me wrong — the Tenors were way better than being a rat’s chew toy, but the multi-cultural aspect left me bored. Even with the french songs, I found it challenging to follow the lyrics. Which would be a good time to tune out and listen to the orchestra, if you could hear them. Often they’re pretty muted during the singing.

The NAC Orchestra did do an instrumental opening and closing, and I wish I knew what the finale was (hey, look, it would be in the program, if they had generated one!). It had a spanish-sounding string section that was quite cool.

Overall, as always, I enjoyed the night. Wasn’t the best show we’ve seen, wasn’t the worst. And better than being a rat’s chew toy. What greater praise can I give?

One of five live performances checked off from my 50by50 list, and accompanied by a fun panda.

#50by50 #02 – Who am I when I’m online?

The PolyBlog
June 24 2017

I mentioned in an earlier post that not all of my 50by50 commitments were going to be “bucket list type” things. Some of them, in some ways, are really just getting myself squared away. Deciding who I am, I suppose.

And I’ve been struggling with one aspect of my identity for quite some time. Who am I when I’m online?

Way back when I started engaging on the internet, I shared jokes and humour. I ran a trivia contest by email for a very long time. I wrote movie reviews and shared those. But I always wanted to get to the point where I was sharing my own writing online. I struggled though between writing stuff that was essentially “for me”, or more accurately, “about me”, and stuff that was more business-oriented or professional. Like writing about my own jobs vs. writing about HR processes.

I waffled on how it looked online. Awhile ago, I switched to having two sites — one personal, one for writing. Yet are those really different? Are there two sides to me? I wasn’t even sure I got the split right. I made the writing one the “PolyWogg.ca” web domain, as I liked the idea of being PolyWogg for my writing. Yet that left ThePolyBlog as my personal area. Then I would go to write something about goals, and I couldn’t decide — was it “polywogg” as it was about a serious approach to goal-setting, something I am fairly knowledgeable about, or was it “thepolyblog” as it included my own goals?

I’m heavily influenced of course in that division by lots of writers out there who have a “professional” site for all their books and things, and perhaps a “personal” site where they share recipes and stories about their families. Or knitting patterns. Links to Instagram, etc. I kept telling myself if I was going to ever get to that professional writing stage, I should plan now to have the two sites, keep them separate, never the twain shall meet.

Which I have realized is ridiculous. One of the reasons writers often do that is so that publishers and editors and agents (oh my!) can see their “work” all together, not cluttered with personal stuff. But I don’t care about publishers or editors, and don’t get me started on my feelings about most agents (think lawyers and used car salesmen, and drop a level or two). So why am I separating things?

There is me. Only me. PolyWogg, with a blog that I call the PolyBlog. But it is all me. And it is far less work to have one site than two, even just on overhead management.

So I decided to merge the two websites and put everything under PolyWogg.ca. I could have just as easily called this “Fixing my website”, but that is just the activity. I’ve embraced the totality of who I am electronically, and jettisoned some other elements in the process too.

I have struggled a lot with my social media presence. The short version is that I don’t “get it” for certain types of interactions, how to scale up so to speak. I have tried more postings, less posting, more content, less content, different days, different times of the day, different types of content. On Facebook, where I have limited myself to about 100 friends and am not looking to expand that number drastically as it is primarily for friends, I have extremely limited engagement on my posts.

Take my memes for example. I loved the idea of trying to create my own little brand of meme, following in the footsteps of some giants on the ‘net who have created little shareable cards with their logo and some text. I did quotes, I did jokes, I did lunchnotes for kids. The vast majority by far received ZERO response. Most of them not even a single like outside of my wife, and those are often pity likes. 🙂

I stopped them when I was getting no response. I switched my focus a bit to sharing my TV reviews and photos. I watch a lot of serialized TV, review episodes, and post the reviews to Twitter. Since I was actually clicking to NOT share them on FB, I started letting them go through too. I figured a handful of people would start liking the shows they watched. Nope, one or two, occasionally, but not very often. Even though my occasional posts about cancellations, etc., attract some comments, I get nothing on my TV episodes. So I have gone back to Twitter only for those. I’ve even tweaked my setup a bit on those for what makes sense for me, even if it reduces my hashtag pickup occasionally.

I’m almost finding FB to be a negative influence on my life. I’m not talking about people who are obsessed with it, constantly refreshing etc., I mean that while it is a good tool to reduce feelings of isolation, those feelings do not diminish if you’re posting into the wind and there is no echo coming back. I actually have felt more isolated at times with some of my posts, particularly where I have shared something I felt really strongly about, and received nothing but silence. I feel like sometimes I’m craving the likes too much, too much desire for acceptance or positive feedback.

So a week ago, I withdrew from FB. I didn’t delete my account or anything, I just stopped posting. I have logged in each day once just to scan for news announcements from friends, liked a few things, a couple of small comments for the week, but nothing substantial. I read things where I was tagged, that’s about it.

It’s just not my focus, since I get almost nothing out of it. I feel almost the same way about my blog at times. I wrote 50,000 words about previous jobs, and even though I know a bunch of people read the various posts (I have stats on the site), I received 3 comments in total across 17 posts.

I thought about killing my blog entirely and just saying “screw it”. Moving on to something where I get more pay-off for my time investment. Except here’s the thing.

I like writing the posts. Even if people don’t “like” the posts. Even if people don’t comment. Even if people don’t share. There’s a Pearls Before Swine comic strip about writing on the bathroom wall generating more eyeballs viewing it, and it’s true. But I’m going to keep writing. And I guess it comes down to a simple reality.

I’m writing for me. It is a creative outlet for me to say “this is how I see the world”. And when I get to the fiction stage, or bundling up my non-fiction for something into an actual book form, I’m keeping it all on this site.

Because this is who I am. I finally feel like I’ve found my persona for online, one that has been there all along.

I’m PolyWogg.

#50by50 #01 – Make a list of 50 things to do before I’m 50 years old

The PolyBlog
June 15 2017

Today is my birthday (yay me!), and I’m 49 years old!

I have a pretty good life, and so I don’t have any major sources of angst about roads not taken, even if I was a believer in regrets, which I’m not. But next year, I will turn 50, and I was wondering what to do to mark the occasion. Not a single event so much as smaller events over the next year. Think of it as a short-term mini-bucket list. My very own “50 things to do before I’m 50” list, which some people create when they’re in their 30s or early 40s, not usually when it is a single year away.

And with great tasks come great doubts, so I asked my friends and family for suggestions.

I put a couple of caveats on the list though…I was leaning towards things that can be done in and around Ottawa. And since I wasn’t looking to break the bank, probably things that individually wouldn’t go above $500. I also am not looking to risk my life doing stuff, since as I said, I kind of like my life. And, you know, living and stuff. I also know too that there are lots of natural caveats in there that are other personal limits. Like for example that my knees wouldn’t let me run a marathon anytime soon, if at all, even if I was in shape to do it. I’m also probably not going to perform brain surgery either. And flying a plane in a simulator made me sick, so that might be out. Yep, I’m a wuss. Mostly I’m looking for fun and interesting things to consider, not death-defying feats of derring-do.

I know, when you clicked on the link for the post, you probably thought this would be my ACTUAL list. It isn’t. Instead, I will tell you things people suggested, and some types of things that I found or thought of on my own, but I’m not going to share the official list in advance. I am however going to use it as a theme for a lot of blogging throughout the year. So you can see the journey as I go, not the planned destination all at once.

Here are the suggestions I got from asking on Facebook:

  • Liz: Edge walk at CN Tower;
  • Stephan: Golf, Keg for dinner (re-enactment of my bachelor party);
  • Lisa: explore the caves, rock climb outside, cupcake bar, eat snails, casino and blackjack, sing in public, go to a nude beach, get something pierced, get a tat, have a 3some, learn to paint, buy a pet, go to a retirement seminar, go to a time share, make your own ice cream, sail a boat, all day trail ride, hot air balloon, have a prof makeup artist make you up like one of your idols and get pics done, redecorate a room just the way YOU like it, eat something spicy, drink a wine from your birth year with your parents, do a couples swap, shave a pattern in your legs or head, (NOTE this is NOT my bucket list, I’m just sharing IDEAS!) eat frog’s legs, travel to Vegas or Nashville, re-enact a scene from your fav movie, but yourself a treat like jewellry/car/art, have your home prof cleaned and appraised then go to open houses, enter a contest, make a new friend, fire a poor friend, have a party with good friends, body paint, donation to a charity, park bench dedication, name a star, fly a drone, helicopter ride, white water rafting, hold a snake, east exotic meat, costume party
  • Martin: Fenway Park, write your congressman, discover new galaxy,
  • Andrea: Make a list, axe throwing, escape room, dye your hair (+hot shave?), boat cruis
  • Leanne: National park, national historic site
  • Aliza: Tourist in Ottawa; weekend getaway to Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, Vermont; giant lego or Ikea ball room; travel; explore new hobby; health something or other; new job
  • Pete: Bungee jump, sky dive, scuba dive
  • Julie: Fan expo/comicon, $$ to charity, 50 different meals/drinks/dishes, reconnect with 50 people
  • Mike: Indoor go karts
  • Vivian: Canoe trip in Algonquin park
  • Diane: Fishing
  • Cori: 50 gifts to random people (compliment, help, something)
  • Zoe: Yoga classes
  • Linda: Walk for charity, volunteer at soup kitchen, donate blood

It’s a pretty good list, said Gerald McGrist, to misquote Dr. Seuss. There are definitely some items on that list that I wouldn’t have thought of on my own and some will definitely make the final single list.

Some of them could be all encompassing on their own, like Julie’s idea of 50 meals to try…at one a week, that would be significant all on its own, but I’m not looking for 50 things to do 50 times. In those cases, I might combine them with something else like say 10 restaurants, 10 baking recipes, 10 wing sauces, etc. – i.e. combining a few things that might “add” up to 50, but not 50 all by themselves.

On my own list (I had 42 ideas before I started, mostly from internet searches and things), a few of them are quite, umm, boring. Administrative perhaps. Definitely blue activities like updating my will, or getting a physical. Not very “exciting” but things that should be done to make sure (insert solemn voice here) “my affairs are in order” (end solemn voice). Or to creepily quote Jeff Lindsay from his Dexter novels, to get myself “squared away”.

When I combine the two lists, there some items I will do alone, some with Jacob and Andrea, some with friends and family. A nice mix, even balanced perhaps.

And in the end, I’ll cheat a bit…probably more like 50 items with some sub-commitments that might mean almost 150 “things”, some of them quite small but as I said towards a larger commitment. And if I don’t get them done by 50, I might have to carry a few over, I’m going to be a slave to the list.

But at least I have a starting point…I made a list. Let the journey begin.